Him
by Remilyon
Summary: The aftermath of the Doctor leaving Rose with his duplicate
1. Not Him

Not Him

Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who (wish I did)

Side note I'm still working on the next chapter of Final Moments my muses are arguing with each other right now.

The Doctors thoughts on his duplicate being with Rose.

She kissed lips that were not his. He tried to tell himself that it was the same as kissing him. That she really had kissed him. That it was him she was spending the rest of her life with, spending forever with. But the words rang as false within his head. He didn't feel her lips pressed against his on that beach. Her taste did not linger on his tongue. When her hands touched that body, her fingers ran through His hair it wasn't his own body she touched, that body did not belong to him. She was kissing and holding someone else. Him, the other him. How he hated Him.

His smile hadn't been strained; he didn't frantically running back to the Tardis to avoid doing what he so badly wanted to do. Reflecting back on that day he likes to think no one knew his thoughts, no he had been composed no hint of his raging emotions showing through. No one would ever guess that he'd been one breath away from tearing her out of those arms, away from those lips that dared to kiss her when his own should be the only ones permitted to touch hers. His own arms the only ones allowed to hold her and be held by her. His hearts didn't break seeing her giving herself over to someone who was just a copy of him. No he just acted as his normal self, buried the dark thoughts, urges and he left, with his gut begging him to turn back and drag her back to the Tardis. Lock her away until the image of her kissing Him was a faded memory.

Even today he hides from the people travel with him. He hides from them that almost every second somewhere in his mind he thinks about tearing two universes apart to ensure those hands that are not his never touch her using his own thoughts and fantasies to fuel their knowledge. Or even better ensure those hands that aren't his never touch her at all, never get the chance to learn her. He wants to rip through two worlds simply because Rose should only know his touch and not his copy's.

But his companions do sometimes sleep and when they do he has no one to hide from and the thoughts consume him. He walks the halls with only the Tardis' hum and his thoughts. No he cannot escape it at that point. Sometimes like today he finds himself in the kitchen realizing only after he sits down and takes the first sip of his tea that he made two cups. One is in his hands and the other he automatically sat across from him, it's made the way Rose liked it and it's her mug. It sits across from him taunting.

He gives in to the fantasy that she's on her way to the kitchen, just cleaning up a bit after having to run back to the Tardis. His Timelord mind provides all the details perfectly there she is. Her blonde hair is pulled up into a messy ponytail, tendrils stick to the side of her face from where she washed her face to remove the grime of the day. She didn't bother to put on make-up so she's fresh faced perfect. She has a smile as she walks over to him glances at the tea he had made for her, her grin widens and becomes tongue touched.

Her feet are bare he can hear it as she walks but he cannot see her feet due to the baggy blue pajama pants she wears. She had borrowed them from him when they had first started traveling together and hadn't had a chance to get any of her things. Never gave em back not that he was going to complain he loved seeing her wear them. Once when he had commented about her stealing his clothes she had smiled up at him and said if he wanted those pants back then they could trade the pants for the shirt. The image of her in just his shirt had filled his mind and he had made a promise to himself that somehow he would get to see the reality of that image. She had smiled that smile the one reserved just for him. Her eyes had sparkled as teased him.

They had never made that trade so instead with the pant she wears a pale pink tank top. It leaves her shoulders bare for him to admire, leaves her neck bare to tempt him. She sits down in her seat her body relaxing, sinking into the chair. Her hands reach out and she takes the mug. He watches closely as her lips touch the edge of the mug and she takes her first sip. He is half envious of the drink and cup and half waiting for her response, to see if he got tea right for her. Her head tips back and her eyes close as she makes this little noise that he wants to be the cause of.

"You always make it perfect." Pleasure seeps from her tone.

His hearts clench and he decides her tea would taste so much better than his own especially if sipped from her lips. He is quite desperate for a taste to find out if he is right. He is sure that yes it truly would be perfect. He reaches for her hand to take the mug out of her grasp so he can get the taste he's dying for, at this moment when everything shifts.

He is no longer sitting with Rose but is in the door way. Rose is still at the table her head is still tipped back, eyes closed and someone is taking the cup from her hand with one hand while the other caresses her cheek, just as he was about to do. Fingers are tangling in her hair and her bottomless whiskey colored eyes open as his smile, HIS smile, graces her face. She watches as this intruder lowers his lips to hers. She is even meeting, lifting herself into his embrace. Her eyes falling closed again.

His is frozen and cannot move, he's willing himself to run across the kitchen, to scream, to do anything he can to stop this, but he can't. He struggles to find a way to keep this man from touching Rose. Even as he tries to break the hold on his body he notices that he is no longer in the Tardis kitchen but in a house, with carpets and doors and it not his mug or hers on the table that also is not his. Helpless he cannot bear to watch as Rose lips get closer man holding her in his thrall, instead he shifts his eyes to the window. Outside there's a swing set with a little girl that looks like Rose swing on it only her hair is a chestnut brown.

In the glass he catches a reflection, his face is reflected back at him, his eyes stare back but they are not his. The pretender has the audacity to smirk at him and lock eyes with the Doctor in the glass as his lips lower. Mentally the Doctor is screaming as their lips touch and Rose makes that sound, then there is a sharp pain in his hand and he feel s blood slipping down his fingers.

He looks down, his broken cup in his hand, and blood in dripping on to the Tardis' kitchen floor. There is a piece of porcelain cup lodged in in flesh. His eyes dart around the room searching for Rose and the man but instead of finding them he finds Rose's cup of tea, it's gotten cold. It's happened again a waking sleep that turns nightmare. He wonders what he was thinking leaving Rose with some else someone who was almost him.

To get her back two universes would collapse his mind echoes what he had heard from her own lips "So."


	2. Almost Him

The Him Series

Almost Him

By Remilyon

Don't own the Doctor or anything except the Laptop I'm typing this on so yeah.

The darkness was suffocating. Rose could barely breathe as her back pressed hard against the brick wall. She was trying not pant as she fought to take in the needed air. Fear was rising within her, it permeated her being to the point that she couldn't remember what she was supposed to be doing. Her heartbeat seemed loud against the silence surrounding her, racing as she fought the urge to either run or drop to the ground in defeat. The silence didn't last long enough though she heard it.

"Exterminate"

The moment she heard that mechanical voice panic set in as she felt a terror she never thought she'd feel again. To try and calm herself she reached out for the Doctors hand next to her and it wasn't there. Blindly in the dark her hand searched the air next her for any piece of him, hand, arm, leg, back, chest it didn't matter what part she found as long as she could find him, anything for the comfort she sought.

"Exterminate"

The Dalek was getting closer as Rose frantically searched for the Doctor, he should be right next to her. As time after time her fingers met nothing but air and brick her fear and panic grew. What happened to him, how did she lose him, was he okay? Her thoughts became a frenzied 'No no no no, only air, no doctor, no Doctor' until finally in the darkness she gave in and broke the silence "Doctor" tore from her lips.

Rose Tyler shot up in her bed, sweat covering her body, lungs working overtime to pull life bringing oxygen in and eyes seeing nothing but the dream she had just exited. The darkness seems just as black as her dream and she waits for the sound of the Dalek to come closer. Slowly she feels the hand holding hers and a moment later she hears the voice whispering to her

"Rose it was a dream, you are awake now Rose, I've got you."

Her hand grips his tighter as relief fills for a moment before she realizes that the hand is warm and the voice connected to it isn't quiet His. Sooner than she'd like to admit she realizes that she cannot fake it and that it's not His hand, that it will never be HIM holding her hand again. She finds his eyes in the dark as hers adjust. Eyes that hold kindness, eyes that are so close to the ones she wants them to be looking back at her, but just not the same. Something is missing from them. These realizations are what make waking up worse than the dream. For a moment each time she wakes with him holding her hand she thinks it's HIM. When she hears the almost voice and feels the almost touch she always feels that immediate rush of relief only to have reality snap back around her. Still she clenches her hand around his willing it to be the right one, one slightly colder.

She feels the bed shift as he moves from kneeling next to her bed to sitting next her on it. The arm not attached to the hand she is clasping goes around her offering any comfort he can. His mouth moving, murmuring the whole time giving her something to focus on.

"It only a dream Rose, you're safe, I've got you, I'm sorry" sometimes it's words like these over and over as he sits there lips barely moving as he speaks or makes soothing sounds. "Just breathe"

He sits with her until she stops shaking and shivering, until she relaxes into his warm body as she has done every night for months wishing it were a colder one offering comfort. His thin frame supporting her, trying to shelter her until she is ready to finish the ritual.

She is quick to bring this part to a close, breaking through his whispered words of comfort. "Sorry John, I can't keep doing this to you." Her voice seems harsh in comparison to his quiet gentle words shattering the atmosphere.

His response as always comes on a breathy sigh, "It's okay Rose I want to be here for you anytime and for as long as you need me" his eyes show her the truth within his words but then she already knows that she is precious to him. It's just not the same look He would have given her it's close but not the same. The eyes are less haunted and less closed off than her Doctor's it's just another reminder that they are not the same man, that they do not see things the same way.

"I'm okay now, just going to shower, wash the dreams away. You pop on back to your room get a bit more shut eye, I'm sorry again for pulling you from your sleep" she pulls away from the man that is almost the one she wants, leaving him behind as she closes the door between them.

Once in the bathrooms Rose turns on the shower, and strips ignoring her reflection in the mirror. The one that tells her she needs to take better care of herself. Stepping into the shower she lets the hot water wash away as much of the nightmare as it can. The same dreams haunt her every night, the dream of being in danger and searching for her Doctor but never finding him. Every night she wakes thinking it was only a dream because he's there comforting her but then she always wakes up enough to notice the differences.

Her silent tears get lost in the water washing over her face before slipping down into the drain she wishes her pain could so easily be cleared away. Instead it only grows worse as she moves from thinking about her dream to remembering her time with Him. Her eyes held shut as she pictured his hand reaching out grabbing her follow by the order to run… Blue eyes, big ears and daft face with an equally daft grins he points out some way he's superior to some alien life form… being trapped in a basement holding hands… the shocked face that followed her mum's slap…I could save the world but lose you…a baby Rose being instructed not to create a paradox…dancing and being dipped…losing him…Bad Wolf…killing him…new new Doctor…Lion king quotes…ruffled hair and new teeth…laughter over werewolves…He said your name…The stuff of Legends…quiet right too… Bananas…live a fantastic life…Rose Tyler…I create myself… it lied…we survived hugs…does it need saying.

Flashes pour behind her closed eyes reminding her of all she had once had, all she has lost and all she can never have again. She doesn't know how long she stands in the shower letting the past and water wash over her. She wonders if there was anything she could have done that would have changed His mind. She wonders what possessed her to react to the right words from the wrong man. She wonders how, in two different sets of eyes one brown and blue she had seen the same man behind them but in these eyes that are physically the same, she can't. In two different faces, bodies and even personalities she had seen him but this one here with her that looks and even to an extent act the same she cannot.

She travels through her own thoughts until her mind is numb. Once done her skin and eyes red, she turns the water off and watches as the last drops go down the drain. Palms flat against the white shower wall, hair a wet curtain around her face she braces herself to step out into what is now her world. Echos of the past still sounding as her head replays every word she can remember.

Rose leaves the shower behind pulls a towel around her before standing in front of the steamed mirror. She raises a hand and writes fantastic, defender of the earth, forever and Rose Tyler. Then as quickly as she wrote the words she wipes the mirror clean. Staring back at her is her own blurry image.

"Come on Rose this isn't what He would want for you." The image tells her.

"Then he should have given me a choice. He should have never left me behind…again" was her mental reply to her reflection.

"He thought he was doing the right thing, for both John and me."

"Well he got it wrong."

"Maybe if you hadn't kissed him, Maybe if you had given Him more time to reply, Maybe"

Rose cut herself off "Yeah I get it and maybe the Tardis will be waiting for me behind that door when I open it. No use living in maybes Rose." she sighed already tired of arguing with herself.

She walked into her room grabbed a pair of jeans, a jumper and a hoodie. She lets the simple act of dressing clear her mind for a brief moment. She walks out of her room and passes John's door, it's mostly closed with a little crack and the light on just in case she needs him. Problem is she needs Him so walks by his door ignoring the invitation. Instead she leaves the flat they share as quietly as she can and walks. She walks until she reaches the park, the one park that always has a view of the stars. She sits on the cold park bench but doesn't feel the cold. She never feels the cold when she looks up at the stars and wonders where He is.

She pretends that she's out there. She imagines that He is out there somewhere or when and she is right beside Him. She gives herself a moment to pretend she is with him he never left her. She closes her eyes sees it, they are deciding where to go next. He's standing behind her. He has just asked 'Where to next Rose Tyler' she can almost feel his body behind her, his breath at her ear as he asks, can feel his eyes watching her waiting for her to decide.

Slowly keeping her face to stars she opens her eyes. Staring far off she picks a star raises her hand stretches her arm out and points "that way" she whispers to herself.

She feels a hand take hers and a voice questions next to her ear "That way, are you sure?"

"No" she murmurs back and adjusted her finger just ¼ of an inch "that way."

The Hand stays solid in hers and when she opens her eyes, for just a moment He's here with her. The voice already gave away that it isn't the man she wants behind her. His voice doesn't have the same inflections as her Doctor, it is higher when it should lower and lower when it should be higher speeds up when it should be slow. It's almost there but she always hears the difference. Still she allows herself these moments.

He sits on the bench next to her, handing her a cup of tea. No words are needed so they stay unspoken. Her hand slips into his and he gives the only comfort he can in the absence of the one she is still waiting for. She knows what her mother and co-workers think. She knows how this looks from the outside. Living together, working together, holding hands and star gazing. But it's not what they think. After He had left them both standing on that beach they had tried to be what everyone expected, what He has wanted but they couldn't even make it a day. This man cares for her, comforts her and still even loves her but it is not a passionate love it was a brotherly love a friendship love and nothing more. It had hurt him just as much to be left behind she holds his hand not only for her own comfort but to also offer it back to him.

She leans on him and he gives her time to learn to live again 5 and ½ hours had passed months ago but still she waits, after all she had promised Him forever.


End file.
